


would you mind putting that out?

by Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Minor Violence, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: He could feel all of his bones, general flesh and various blood canals hurting like hell was not a thing. Like God had decided to smite him with a silencer to save themself the trouble of getting the thunder and lightning ready. Like he was a thumbleweed so outstandingly dry that a gust of wind would have turned it to dust instead of pushing it around. Like he was going to crumble into porcelain pieces as soon as somebody approached and/or talked to him.“Hey,” Sammy’s voice reached him.
Kudos: 3





	would you mind putting that out?

If anything, the balcony was fresh and quiet, and the streets of the city did not reek of god awful things.

Joey put his head on the handrail and closed his eyes. He could feel all of his bones, general flesh and various blood canals hurting like hell was not a thing. Like God had decided to smite him with a silencer to save themself the trouble of getting the thunder and lightning ready. Like he was a thumbleweed so outstandingly dry that a gust of wind would have turned it to dust instead of pushing it around. Like he was going to crumble into porcelain pieces as soon as somebody approached and/or talked to him.

“Hey,” Sammy’s voice reached him.

Joey felt himself shatter with a tinkering sound; unfortunately the human body does not work that way, and he was now tasked with the mortifying, revolting endeavour of both perceiving and being perceived by another living being.

He half hummed a reply and curled himself on the floor, sliding down the balcony bars.

The musician side eyed him.

Joey was so glad he didn’t like him enough to strike up a conversation.

The click of a lighter opening, making a flame poof to life within it, sounded more like the wonderfully lethal pyrotechnic spectacle offered by the volcanic eruptions of mount Etna in Sicily.

Sammy lit up his cigarette and took a drag.

He waited a moment or so, eyes still closed. The feeble smell of burning nicotine wandered lazily in the air. His pale fingers drummed on the metal bars softly; he reclined his head, whole back following as the tips of his shoes lifted and his heels held up his entire weight, humming as softly as he could. The musician ignored him. His arms slipped between the bars and he pulled himself back to them, holding onto them like a little kid.

“Would you mind putting that out, please?” he asked.

Sammy gave him a puzzled look.

A sickly pale finger pointed at his lit cigarette: “Would you mind putting that out, please?” Joey repeated.

The musician cocked an eyebrow. The burning stick swayed back and forth between his index and middle finger, a thin tray of white smoke raising in the air.

“It’s just a cigarette.” he commented.

“I don’t understand.”

Sammy frowned. The look on his face screamed quietly that if this was one of his stupid ‘plays’ he was not in the mood to be made fun of by an overgrown child.

“Speak clearly for once,” his voice hissed.

Joey held a little tighter on the handrail.

“You said it like it was a small thing.”

“It is.”

Sammy huffed a growl as round grey eyes stared without a single word: “So?” he snarled impatiently, “Speak, dear _God_ , I can’t read your mind! What, you want a drag?”

“I asked if you could put it out, please.”

“It’s just a cigarette!”

“So it would be too much trouble to put out?”

“What the hell is - why do you keep asking?”

“I don’t like the smell.”

“The smell! There’s another balcony in this damn building, you know that. Just go there. Or get back in.”

“I can’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“The… The air. It’s bad.” he struggles to find the words. “It’s the wrong… It makes me sick. I don’t want to breathe it.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“The _air_. Is wrong.” Sammy repeated slowly.

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Sure.”

The musician took another drag. Joey felt his head explode.

“What about it, pray tell, is wrong?” the smoking man asked with a tone too sarcastic for the animator’s liking. “Is the temperature wrong? Does it smell?”

“It’s…” on one hand, yes, to both of those: there were too many people, so it was too warm, and too full of different scents. On the other hand, that felt wat too simplistic. It was not just that, could not be just that; he just. Couldn’t put it into words.

He stretched and straightened his back a little: “It’s complicated.”

Sammy exhaled a cloud of smoke through open teeth, shapeless tendrils of dirty white clinging and climbing his lips to ascend, instead of speaking.

He did not flinch when Joey stood up sharply, grabbed his wrist harshly, pried his fingers open, clenched the still lit cigarette in his palm to extinguish it, and threw the musician’s nearly new packet out of the balcony to be devoured by the street.

He did not flinch because it happened outstandingly fast.

Then Joey cursed as he let the stub go, a small hole burned neatly in the curves of his palm, and Sammy yanked his aching wrist free with a pained groan. The animator grabbed his leg to make him step on the cigarette, and he nearly kicked his right calf as he struggled against him.

“What the hell is your problem?” he shouted, appalled.

Joey grabbed his shirt with hands turning into claws, grasping the fabric viciously, teeth clenched and eyes maddeningly wide - a face Sammy had never quite seen if only through vague glimpses in grey irises, contorted in fury as the painfully normal body it was glued to pushed him against the handrail with what seemed to be the very real intention of defenestrating him to his death.

“I asked _nicely_ ,” he growled - _**growled**_ \- and pressed Sammy’s spine against the metal with shaking fists, “I asked nicely, I asked _**nicely**_ , for once, for _once_ -!"

He slammed the man against the metal again - his voice turned to a hiss as the musician’s head dangled above a precipice of cement, and Sammy grabbed the animator's suspenders with genuine fear in some kind of attempt at anchoring himself to something that could have prevented a lethal flight down: “And I should have just **_thrown_** **_you off!_** ”

The musician's saving grace was opening his mouth.

Joey slammed his side into the handrail and let go, averting his face from Sammy's as he coughed the remains of smoke that had slitgered into his nose. He groaned and growled, trying to sink his nails into the balcony as he shakily walked away from the music director.

Neither spoke for a moment. Recollecting their breaths.

Joey hissed quietly and left.

Sammy watched him return to the dreadful air between closed walls, hunched forward with gritted teeth clenched like a defeated beast.


End file.
